


A Former Slave's Offer

by Merfilly



Series: Jedi Asajj [6]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Relationships, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-19 18:11:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8220266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: Asajj goes after Obi-Wan in the aftermath of the Battle of Naboo. Surprisingly, at that.





	

To say Obi-Wan was in shock was putting it mildly. Asajj watched him awkwardly trying to cope with the desert ragamuffin for a full ten-day before she finally just invited herself to their quarters. By which she actually meant letting herself in, as the door was rarely, if ever, locked against visitors.

"Asajj?" Obi-Wan said, blinking in mild surprise.

"Yes. Where's your tag-along?"

Obi-Wan grimaced. "Bant chose to take him and teach him with the Initiates today."

"That's where he should be anyway, if not in the creche still," Asajj said, striding over to drop on the couch beside him. "You should not have taken him as a padawan!"

Obi-Wan got the stubborn argumentative look on his face, and opened his mouth, but she held up one hand. "First, you are grieving! And don't spout platitudes at me, Obi-Wan. Your Master may yet recover, but you are grieving the loss of the status you had at his side! I know damned well that the only reason you agreed to have your Knighting was in order to take the boy and assure his place in the Temple.

"But I am not here to argue what cannot be undone. I am here to offer my help."

Now the other Knight could only stare at her. It took long moments before he could answer that. "Help? How? I mean, everyone seems to be trying to find reasons that Anakin should join their class or help with something in the Temple, but… no offense, Asajj, you tend to not be the most forthcoming with help unasked for."

Asajj made a moue and sighed. "You are one of the few people I think of as a friend, Obi-Wan. Even when I want to beat your head in with my lightsaber hilts!" 

He chuckled at that. "It's been a rough bit, Asajj." They had lost Darsha all too recently, Qui-Gon was in a medical coma, and then there was Anakin. Obi-Wan already knew he loved the boy, but he didn't understand him in the least!

"I know. And that is why you need my help. Too many changes for you in recent weeks… but what of the boy? He's a former slave, and if I am not qualified to help with that, I don't know who is."

He took her hand between them, his eyes lowering. "I tend to forget that about you, my friend. You are so fiercely independent."

"Yes, well, I haven't. I never will be able to forget. And the boy certainly hasn't. How sick has he been because of the food?"

Obi-Wan flushed slightly. "He's getting better about not gorging, but he hasn't gone three days without eating something that disagreed with him violently."

"Then, this is what we will do." Asajj crafted her plan on the spot. "You will let me have him from breakfast to the midday meal. I can teach him how better to take care of his need to learn food, and not be so insecure about it. Among other things. Then, from midday meal until evening meal, you, and only you, need to be instructing him on youngling basics of the Force. He needs the security of having you solidly in his life for a while. 

"Once I evaluate that he is at a safer point in his mind and awareness of his freedom, then you can start joining your friends and other knights with him in training. But not until then!" She poked him in his chest to emphasize her point.

Obi-Wan took a deep breath, then another… and the next thing he knew he was being turned to put his head on her shoulder. It felt awkward; Asajj was not the warmest person at the best of times, but where he hadn't let himself break down with Bant, he could with her. She would never speak of it, never drag the rest of his group into some well-meant but poorly planned outing. He gave in, purging the emotions through tears that Tahl said were cleansing for the soul.

When he stopped, and had sat back, she had a faintly disapproving look for her robe's shoulder.

"Sorry?"

"I never realized how much you humans leaked when your emotions are so poorly managed," she said, with just the right tone of … Asajj-ness to make him break out in laughter. At her smile, he knew that was just what she had intended to do.

"I do hope Quinlan appreciates your wit as much as I do, my dear."

She made a distinctly unimpressed noise at the mention of the Knight she occasionally took to her bed. "He's useful to me and little more than that," she protested. "And that is a mutual feeling, I assure you. Though, if we are going to call lovers into the picture, is that handsome Senator of yours tending you lately, since Tachi is off-world?"

Asajj did love the shade of red he could turn. "He's not the full Senator yet, and I haven't seen him in weeks."

She laughed at him, and shakes her head. "Sex is a very therapeutic release of stress," she assured him, and the blush deepened. "Think on that, darling, while you go take a nice, hot shower to loosen the rest of your muscles. I'll be by in the morning to get the boy."

"Yes, Asajj." He got up to go obey that suggestion as she saw herself out.

She still didn't fully understand why Obi-Wan was the only one close to her age she had ever really taken to, but there was a small feeling of satisfaction in the pit of her stomach to know she had helped him. She'd have to keep a close eye on him, because, for all he espoused the Code and its nonsense about emotions, he did tend to bottle things up instead of letting them go.

Beyond that, she did feel the slightest amount of empathy toward the boy he had taken in. It was not an easy thing to learn to be free, even when the thirst for that freedom ran strong in the soul.


End file.
